Mayors see sequester cutting jobs

Defense cuts and tax hikes get most of the attention when Congress talks about the devastating effects the fiscal cliff could have on the economy.

But if you ask many mayors and local lawmakers how it could affect their states and towns, you’ll hear about cuts to education programs. And infrastructure bonds. And food stamps for children.

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And how state and local officials fear taking the political blame for drastic cuts to hometown services, when it was Congress that created — and has thus far avoided — fixing the financial mess born last year from the Budget Control Act.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat who is currently the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the scheduled spending sequester will depress state and local budgets that rely on extra funding from the federal government to provide security, nutritional or other basic services to citizens.

The mayors have been pressuring Congress to pass a bipartisan, revenue-raising stopper to sequestration. But as the end of the calendar year looms, the conference is also trying to inform the public about why there may be fewer police officers or firefighters on the job next year.

“I’m not much for name calling. I’m about facts and details and information, but elected officials are paid to do their jobs regardless of whether or not they are running for reelection,” Nutter said in an interview with POLITICO. “We need to let the public know … how it happened and who is responsible. We the mayors are the ones that have to implement the insanity that comes from Washington, D.C.”

The deep cuts sequestration could inflict on state and local budgets would affect programs that have already seen plenty of belt tightening since the recession.

“The states are just climbing out of the difficulties they had with the last economic downturn,” Barry Anderson, deputy director for the National Governors Association, said. “This would really, really set them back. Significantly.”